"So what's your complaint again? I did not quite get it."
The wobbling lady beside the two black-suit men couldn't argue. After all, her heart wasn't in a position to beat properly, let alone quarrel.
Her face was drenched with tears, and her eyes, covered with black makeup, made her look ugly and, of course, depressed.
"M-m-m," she quivered. One of the men had to help her relax by giving her a bottle of water.
"My daughter," she cried out. "My two-year-old." She kept on crying while the men looked at each other, feeling exhausted—a typical one.
They were all inside her living room, but the woman wouldn't stop looking outside. And her eyes were moving around her house at the same time.
In response to any noise she heard, she would falter. "So what happened to your daughter, miss?" one of the men asked.
But instead of saying something understandable, the lady said nothing and pointed directly through the window.
When the men looked through the open window, sweat broke. It was an abandoned house; there were no houses beside it, and, funny enough, the clouds on top of it were dark, even though it wasn't midnight.
The house seemed like it would collapse at any moment, and the dirty white dress of an old lady was hanging on the window.
One of the men swallowed. "Dude, how did a two-year-old go in there?"
When they turned back to the lady for a little explanation, she was still pointing at the house, as if possessed.
Their collective expression changed from irritated to wary.
Nightmare horrors appeared in the world a few decades ago. Back then, the government barely gave ears to complaints such as a dead wife hopping with a single foot.
Or houses being haunted, humans unable to wake up after horrors had fed on their negative energies such as fear, sadness, and even depression.
Of course, by then it was already too late—not as if an early response could make a difference.
Nightmare horrors were creatures that dwelled among the nights; that was their perfect time for feeding. But if you went into haunted places, you got haunted.
In some cases, you were captured and kept getting haunted until they had fed on all your negative energies, leaving you for dead.
Or you became one of them. No surprises if a two-year-old turned into a viral Chucky with a mallet.
The horrors are now on earth, 2027, and no one knows what they want.
With the emergence of these nightmare horrors came exorcists like the two men. Some were gifted with abilities, others, well, just them.
"Man, that lady really scares me, you know," the slightly chubby one said. Looking behind him, he saw the lady was looking outside, looking at them.
"She still looking?" the other asked.
"Yes."
They both stood outside the haunted house. When the chubby one took a step, the door to the haunted house creaked open.
Inside was the darkest place he had seen in his entire life.
"Um... John, my wife is having our fifth kid, so maybe—"
"Jeez, what type of partner are you?" The slender one rolled his eyes, igniting his palm with flames, and moved forward.
However, when he was an arm's length away from the door, John saw something dressed in white hopping past in the darkness, which stopped him.
"What is that humming sound?" John asked himself.
Undoubtedly hearing a mournful sound coming from within, the voice sounded old and coarse but still made his hair chill.
He wasn't moving, but the sounds of approaching footsteps were getting louder, possibly closer.
John braced himself to burn it down if it happened to not be the kid. However, from the darkness and in front of John was an old rotten leg.
John's heart skipped. He breathed out and turned to look at his chubby partner. "Dude, I'm not entering this hole," he said.
"I say we call him. He always asks for fifty percent of our pay; we can make that work, right?" said the chubby one.
John slowly backed away from the house until he was facing the chubby partner before he responded, as if catching his breath.
"Unless you want to go in there looking for a kid possibly hiding."
The chubby exorcist looked at the dark, and again the door creaked, slowly closing itself. If they stayed till dark, whatever was inside would come out to feed.
"He's the only one foolish enough to go in there," said the chubby person.
"His name is basically called the Fool. You calling him, or going in yourself?"
---
"There's no way I would take another girl as my partner!" The slender male, dressed in all black clothing, yelled, slamming his hands on the desk in front of his supervisor.
Meanwhile, the girl sat outside the office, unable to eavesdrop because the office recollected all sounds going outside.
Mr. Gibbs sighed, trying to calm down the man in front of him.
"Bruce, think this through. You need a partner. It's in the code. Exorcists aren't supposed to be alone."
"Damn the code," Bruce replied. "The last female partner I had collapsed; she didn't last a minute."
"Bruce, would you at least listen to me? Miss Shirley isn't just any female. Her aptitude horror test was 7—that's almost like yours. Look." Mr. Gibbs stood up, walking towards Bruce.
He added, "Why don't you just give her a chance? The kid lost her parents, and she joined searching for the horror that did it."
Bruce was silent. The emotional blackmail tactics. Outside, Shirley was just another regular exorcist, though beautiful, with her short red hair.
Exactly another reason Bruce doubted her—pretty girls got scared easily. But if you were ugly... Bruce sighed.
Mr. Gibbs took Shirley's file from his desk and handed it over to Bruce. "I read she awakened invisibility," he said, hoping Bruce would give her a chance.
Else Mr. Gibbs would be among the headquarters supervisors unable to control his employees. Sacking Bruce was not an option.
After all, he was their greatest asset—he was the Fool.